Hey, get out of my car!!!!

So last night I was driving home with my co-worker, Robert. As we were going up 140th Way, just before SE 156 we saw an accident. It was fairly normal commute traffic and I was in the right lane heading up the hill and an Acura Legend, in the far left lane, was doing the same but at a little higher speed. He got boxed in a bit by other cars and then changed 2 lanes at once into my line. He continued to accelerate up the hill but there was a truck coming down the hill and turning onto SE 156th. The Legend collided with the back end of the truck, spinning the truck around almost 180 degrees. As I drove by, I could see the guy in the truck didn't appear hurt and was starting to get out of his car so I continue to the where the Legend stopped in some grass beyond the side walk and parked.

The passengers (4 of them) were starting to get out. I tried to roll Robert's window down but was quite flustered and accidentally rolled my window down (it goes all the way down if you just push the button right). I never got Roberts window to budge. We got out and Robert started to call 911. I went to see if the people were OK. The driver was a guy in his 20s, I'll call him "Hey". Hey got out of the car and I noticed his airbag had deployed. He seemed OK and said so after I asked him. I then proceeded around to the passenger side where a woman in her 20s and two girls (6-8 years old) got out of the car. All of them said they were OK, but one girl was rubbing her face. The guy seemed to be moving about his car, I assumed looking at the damage to his car.

Robert started walking down to the other car and was talking to the 911 operator. So I started moving that way, as well, while talking to the woman but for some reason didn't want to move away from my car. I turned to look back at my car and Hey was on the at the driver's door of my car. I yelled "Hey, what are you doing!" and started to run to my car as he jumped into the driver's seat. Like an idiot, I left my keys in the ignition and I never do that (just ask Jenny). Hey started the car as I got to the open window. I grabbed the guys shirt but he had moved the gear to "2" or "L" and tried to floor it. Since my car started to go fairly slow, I had a 1/2 second to decide what to do. So I made a quality decision and proceeded to dive in through the open window.

I turned around while sitting on the passenger side with my feet in the guys face and yelled something like "Hey, Get out of my car!!!!" as loud as I could. He tried to plead with me to "please" let him go, while I was sitting there with him trying to drive my car away. We were going about 5-10 mph by this time. I reached over and pulled the keys out of the ignition, like I should have done originally, and the car stopped pretty quickly. I yelled at Hey to get out of my car again and he finally made the quality decision to get out.

I jumped into the driver's seat and started backing up while watching Hey head South up a small hill toward a neighborhood. Another by-stander started to chase him up the hill but Hey was pretty quick and was on to bigger and better things. I parked my car back in its original location, rolled up the window and took my keys with me. :)

Robert was still talking to the 911 operator and had no idea what had just happened. After telling Robert that Hey had just tried to steal my car, Robert handed me the phone so I could talk to the operator. At that moment the police showed up so the 911 operator let me go. We told them what had happened and hung around for a bit more until the police got my name/number, told me to expect a call that night and said we could go.

I got a call to go to the Maple Valley sheriff's office around 7:00 to pick the guy out of a line-up because they think that they caught the guy. At the Sheriff's office, they showed me 6 pictures of men and I was able to eliminate 4 of them right away. Hey's picture looked a little different than I remembered, but it was definitely him. They detective said that he was the guy they picked up so I got it right. The detective got my statement of what happened and I signed it.

They thanked me at the station and in another call because they said the guy was on drugs and was a bit manic. He could have easily done the same thing with my car at the next intersection and possibly killed someone. Hey was found in a house trying to put on new clothes and holding an older man hostage (although he didn't appear to have any weapons). He is going to be brought up on 4 charges:

1. Theft of the Acura Legend
2. Hit and run
3. Attempted car jacking
4. Breaking and entering

The sheriff said he will be going to jail for quite some time.

In the end, jumping through the window of your car while it is being jacked, is probably not the recommended procedure, but thankfully it turned out OK.